Beyond the Sea

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Is this biopic darin' enough to succeed on DVD?

By Peter Schorn

"This has been my dream project" are six words that can strike penetrating fear into the hearts of film fans; more often than not, it means that some actor or director has accumulated enough commercial leverage (or goodwill or executive dirt) to get some longtime self-indulgent effort green-lit, and we're expected to admire their tenacity regardless of its relative merits. Sometimes the dream pays off, like Taylor Hackford's Ray; sometimes it's debatable, as with Martin Scorsese's woeful yet lauded Gangs of New York; but the less said about John Travolta and Battlefield Earth, the better.

So when Kevin Spacey's long a-borning biopic of the life and times of singer Bobby Darin, Beyond the Sea, arrived in theaters last year, it arrived with the stink of Hollywood hubris hanging over its brylcreemed head. "Sure, he's a good actor, but what makes him think he can star, direct, co-write and sing the soundtrack, too?" Confidence wasn't high, reviews were mixed-negative and the worldwide gross was a meager $7.2 million dollars. Did Spacey's dream turn into a nightmare?

Not hardly.

Granted, the title may not have been as effective at soliciting moviegoer interest than, say, The Bobby Darin Story, despite its top slot in the Darin canon. But Darin's 'target' audience- or at least that of this film- remains too amorphous to determine what direction to take the project; the Rat Pack found an assured place in the annals of pop-cultural history (if for no reason than Sinatra's historic leadership), but Darin faded from general memory at the young age of 37, with a collection of hit singles ironically too eclectic to be memorable.

Opening with a concert scene shot movie-in-a-movie style for a Darin biopic, Beyond the Sea offers a This is Your Life flashback retelling of the singer's life similar to that of last summer's Cole Porter biopic De-Lovely.

Stricken by rheumatic fever as a boy (played by William Ulrich), Darin - born Walden Robert Cassotto - wasn't expected to see his 15th birthday. To lift his spirits, his mother Polly (Brenda Blethyn) buys him a piano and teaches him to play; after a musical fantasy number of dancing in the neighborhood streets that sets the tone for the picture, Darin sets off to find his fortune.

After a rough start, he has some early teen idol hits, but wants to move on to something classier, something that would allow him to play the Mecca of nightclubs to him, the Copacabana, where Sinatra reigned long before Barry Mannilow was singing its decadent praises. Bucking his label, he records an album of standards which earns him both critical and commercial success.

Making the transition into acting, Darin meets teen ing¿nue Sandra Dee (Kate Bosworth) while working on a picture with her. After wooing her away from her disapproving mother (Greta Scacchi), they marry and start a family, though there was much marital and career tension due to his constant touring schedule and her career. Dee's goodie-goodie public image definitely gets a bit of a denting here.

As musical tastes change, nightclub acts like Darin's fall out of favor, and his career founders, despite ten movies roles, an Oscar nod, seven Top Ten hits and two Grammys in seven years. Disillusioned by the assassination of Bobby Kennedy, he turns to protest rhetoric, and his career nosedives predictably until he rediscovers his own appeal- "they hear what they see," he observes- and returns to the fray rejuvenated in his ambition.

Each facet of Spacey's multitasking hat trick- as actor, writer, director and vocalist- is best evaluated individually. First, his singing is simply wonderful and brings credibility the part that merely lip-synching to the original records wouldn't have offered. Working from Darin's original charts and under the watch of legendary producer Phil Ramone (no relation to the punk band!), Spacey gave a few live performances with a full orchestra to promote the movie. He also proves light enough on his feet to contribute to the film's many dance numbers.

As a director, he also acquits himself nicely, bringing a visual flair to the production that makes it look much bigger than its modest budget. Montages condensing his ascent into the span of a single song are stylish and the musical numbers are a nice throwback to the old school of movie musicals that didn't rely on editing overkill to create excitement.

Where Spacey stumbles is in what's his regular day job. For the first half of the movie I simply didn't see him as anything but the familiar Spacey persona of the sarcastic and sardonic wise guy. While Ray Charles was fresh enough in the collective audience mind to make Jamie Foxx's performance even more impressive, I don't have a clue as to what Darin was really like and Spacey never really sold me. However, after a bombshell of an event occurs midway, knocking Darin for a loop, Spacey suddenly became much more interesting and felt like a real character for the remainder of the film.

The supporting cast does well, but their parts are small in the brisk telling of the story. Bob Hoskins, John Goodman, Scacchi and Blethyn all do what they can, but it felt as if more could've been done with them. The standout revelation was Bosworth's portrayal of Sandra Dee - it's hard to believe that this is the same actress from the surf chick epic Blue Crush. Hopefully she'll get more roles that are this challenging in the future.

If there is one factor that holds Beyond the Sea back from biopic excellence, it's that it feels somewhat shallow as it recites the bullet points of Darin's life but doesn't take enough time to let us get to know his life better. We get a lot of "what" but not enough "why?" Spacey's commentary indicates that they cut a lot to keep the length manageable, but sometimes it takes time to properly tell a story properly and with an interesting and tragically truncated life, it should've been taken.